Fallout revolution
by qwertys zeldar
Summary: the tale of 7 people who come together to fight a new corrupt empire in the Oklahoma wastes. will they be able to work together or end up killing each other? my own story no fallout cannon characters are involved they may be mentioned though.
1. Chapter 1

It is 2285, eight years after Project Purity was completed, raising the total amount of clean water in America by 2%, Canada by .8%, and Mexico by .2%. The success of the project has inspired most of the large factions in North America to start their own purification enterprises. This story tells about the start of one particular project near the town of Eufaula, by the Oklahoma Vanguard the largest group in the Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas region. The group is similar to the NCR but with a few small differences starting with it being run by a group of seven people known as the Supreme Court the name coming from a group who used to "run" America. This story will begin in a bar in the town of Blancc, population fifty-seven (gunshot followed by a scream)… make that fifty-six.

_**5/23/2323**_

The bar was relatively quiet at that point of the day, with most of its usual patrons out working the fields. There were only seven people in the bar: two sitting at the counter, one wearing leather armor, while the other wore blue coveralls. They were talking with the owner of the establishment. Another sat in a dark corner by himself. He looked to be in his late fifties and wore a heavy overcoat with some sort of armor underneath it. He was nursing a bottle of whiskey. The remaining three customers sported a mix of armor and clothes, and were sitting at a table in the middle of the room playing Texas hold' em. After about twenty minutes, one of the men glanced over to the older gentleman in the corner.

"Hey Paul, who's the old man?" James, the one wearing coveralls, asked the barkeep.

The bartender frowned and sent a stream of chewing tobacco into a flower pot he used as a spittoon. "Hell if I know," he grunted in response. "He just comes in and sits in the corner, asks for a whiskey, drinks, then leaves without a word."

"Hey old man, why don't you talk? You think that just cuz you reached old age, you're better than us?" James said, taunting the older guy.

The old man looked up at James from underneath a curtain of bushy, gray eyebrows. He casually set down his whiskey and continued to study him. Then, with speed that no one ever thought possible for a man his age, he drew the biggest revolver any of them had ever seen and shot the stool out from under James. While James struggled to get back up, the others just stared at the old man who was now laughing.

"No, I _know_ I'm better than you," he said, then continued to laugh.

"Who the hell are you?" This query came from one of the men that was playing cards. The old man stopped laughing and looked around the room with a slight smile on his face.

"That would be a long story," was his reply.

The man at the bar wearing leather armor spoke up. "We got time stranger. I wouldn't mind a good story. Ain't like we got much else to listen to around here, boys."

The other patrons and the barkeep nodded in agreement. Even James. A man that old and that good with a gun had to be just as quick with a turn of phrase, he reasoned. _Plus, while he's yakking, it'll give me enough time to get my damn foot out of my mouth._

"Ha!" the stranger laughed heartily. "Well then Paul, give me another whiskey. We're gonna' be here awhile."

Once his spontaneous audience had made themselves comfortable, the old man began.

"Let's start at the beginning, shall we…"

_**7/2/2285, 38 years ago**_

_**12:03 pm**_

The Talon Company camp was destroyed, everyone dead except for one poor soul who was quickly trying to get away before he was killed too. Still running when he reached the end of the camp, Jason risked a look behind to see if the thing was chasing him – and consequently didn't see the side of the wrecked truck looming in front of him until it was too late. He turned around just in time to have the trailer's cold steel smash into his face, the impact bouncing him backwards and leaving him lying in a stunned heap on the ground.

Jason muttered a slurred curse, the hit having jarred something loose upstairs momentarily. He willed the fog to leave his mind. He knew that if didn't keep moving, he was going to be just as dead as his friends in the camp. He had just started to get up, when the biggest boot he had ever seen in his life came down and smashed him back into the dirt.

"Oh hell," was all he could whimper.

Jason's day had started out as normal as any day for greenhorn mercenary could. This was his first posting with the Talons; he didn't even know what they were going to have him do yet. All Jason knew was that with the Talons, there was the promise of easy caps, food, and shelter. And all he had to do was shoot a gun. He could do that. He'd had to shoot his way out of Tulsa just to avoid being killed by some hired goons, courtesy of a disgruntled former employer.

After bumping into a very persuasive Talon Company recruiter in a pub on the outskirts of Bixby, he'd hoofed it all the previous night to arrive at this camp. There, after a quick power nap, he and nine other recruits were told to form up in front of the captain's quarters. They waited there for about half an hour before the captain finally came out. After the commanding officer had stepped out of the makeshift building he'd walked over to the sergeant that had been watching the recruits and asked if they were the new whelps. Even though the captain seemed quite intimidating, Jason had been excited. At that point, anything would have been preferable to his former life in the Tulsa ruins.

The sergeant had been about to answer the captain's question, when there was a loud bang followed by the captain collapsing to the ground. In his abdomen, a hole the size of a human head was now gushing out a fountain of crimson. Everyone, including the sergeant, had just stared at the body in shock, still trying to figure out what had just happened when there was another report and the recruit next to Jason flew forward without a head.

Less than an hour later, everyone was dead. Save Jason. And the owner of the boot now standing on top of him.

When he looked up, Jason saw the boot was sheathing the foot of an absolute giant of a man. He was easily seven feet tall, full of muscle, and had a trimmed beard as well as longish brown hair. He also had a hand cannon of a revolver hanging from his side, its size so immense, it looked as if a baby could easily put its arm up the barrel and still have room to wiggle it around. On his back, he had a machete – that looked like an oversized dagger next to the man – in a sheath. He didn't seem to notice that he had stepped on Jason.

"Who the hell are you?" Jason asked the human skyscraper, who was busy lighting a cigar with the coals of a nearby fire. After he lit the cigar he looked down at Jason.

"Oh, almost forgot you were there," was his reply. Then he laughed and said, "The name's Sue…and I need a hand."

"What was your name and why do you need a ha–" Whatever Jason was going to say was lost to his shrieks of agony. The big man had taken out his machete and in one deft move, cut his hand clean off.

**Elsewhere… 12:03 pm**

_Bang_

"Holy crap, woman! I said wait until I covered my ears before firing that thing!" Tom yelled rubbing his right ear, which was probably deaf by now from Lana firing the anti-material rifle while using his shoulder to stabilize it.

"Stop whining. If I'd waited for you, then we would have missed our shot," Lana replied, putting the rifle back in its case. "And we can't afford to lose another job; we need the caps if we're goin' to survive out here."

"She's right you know. I wouldn't be happy if you died on me. What would I do without you two?" cooed a soft feminine voice in his head.

"Shut the hell up, Helen. I know, and either way, you'd be dead too if I died!"

"No, not really. I wasn't dead when you found me, and when I tricked you into putting me in your head," Helen replied in a matter-of-fact way.

"Do you have to remind me of that every single day?"

"Helen, leave Tom alone, we have to get goin'." Lana sometimes wished that she hadn't given the "healing anti-bodies" to Tom. The damn AI had placed itself into some experimental healing device that she'd found in the ruins of a high security lab. Tom had been shot and was dying so she'd injected it into him. Of course it worked, but Helen was also in it and as a result, Tom had become her host body. "Either way you tricked both of us."

With that, Lana jumped down from the large rock they had been standing on and started towards their trailer. The trailer was one of the big old camping rigs. They'd managed to find eight tires that weren't destroyed and put four on the already existing wheels. They had then attached two more axels and placed the remaining four on them. Along with some old crates for storage, they'd welded some old lockers by the vehicle's four side windows so that they could be used to house their weapons and ammo. After that, they'd started to weld metal plates all over the trailer to give it more protection from bullets…and worse. Originally, Tom and Lana we're going to buy some Brahman to haul the fortress on wheels around, but then Tom had gotten tricked into inserting Helen into his head, whereupon she'd shown them how to make an engine to hook up to the wheels, as well as a steering wheel to turn the thing. Tom felt it would have been nice if Helen had told them about the steering wheel part before he'd spent three days attaching the front axels on to the trailer. After fixing the steering issue though, they were able to turn it relatively well. All they needed to run the contraption were six fission batteries and some oil. It only went twenty-five miles per hour, and it wasn't much to look at, but at least it allowed them to rest anywhere in relative safety and get from point A to point B much faster than most.

They were only about a mile away from the town of Leguire, and nine miles from the city of McCertain. They had been waiting on a rocky outcropping for a group of raiders who possessed the item Tom and Lana had been ordered to retrieve. They thought that they would have to shoot all four of them, but the raider band in question ended up being attacked by a giant radscorpion, leaving only one survivor. So, after shooting said survivor, all they'd had to do was retrieve the item and get back. Which to Tom, was a good thing. Besides the possibility of going deaf in one ear, they would only have to buy one more shot for the AM rifle. The bullets for the weapon were expensive in these parts, and there was only one place to legally get them, that being the Den.

"Hey come on, we need to get goin', Tom." With that, Lana hopped up into the trailer and started the engine.

With a sigh of relief, Tom slung the rifle onto his back and followed after her.

**Elsewhere… 6:12 pm**

_How did I end up here? Why did this happen to me? What will happen to me now?_ Chloe had asked these same questions of herself every day since her enslavement had begun two years before. She had been taken to some place called Paradise Falls down near D.C. when she was sixteen and stayed there for about three weeks before a merchant had bought her. He was looking for a couple slaves to help carry his supplies west. They'd travelled for about three months before arriving at a small town where she was sold to some slavers, her services no longer needed, she'd been told.

The slavers had a camp on the edge of town. They treated her like an animal. If she was too slow, they would beat her. If she cried, they would beat her. If she talked without being spoken to, they would beat her even more. This had continued for the next two years or at least she thought it was about two years.

Today, she was receiving punishment for accidently tripping over a slaver's outstretched leg. Though, as he informed her, this particular beating was for tripping without being told to trip first. The abuse lasted for about ten minutes before he stopped and walked away. Chloe was so focused on trying to make her battered legs hold her malnourished weight, it took her a few moments before she noticed the man. He was standing outside of the camp's fence, staring at her. Trying not to look him in the eye, she got back up and finished what she had been doing before. She was later beaten by the same slaver for being a minute late on completing her task.

The next day, she was taken from her bed and placed in a line. She was confused, as the slaver who fetched her was not the one who continually beat her, but one of the guards who patrolled the camp. After she was lined up with a few of the other slaves, four men – one was clearly the slave master who ran the camp; the others must have been the buyers – walked down the row, looking at each of them. They stopped twice and pulled out two slaves who were taken to the entrance. Then, they reached her.

"Her," one of the men said. She didn't know which one though, because she had her head down to avoid being hit for making eye contact.

"Are you sure? She isn't the greatest of the slaves here. We have much better stock," said the slave master. _His _voice, she recognized.

"Yes I'm sure." It was the same voice as before. Its user did not sound very old at all, maybe early twenties.

"Are you? She doesn't look very strong or even all that healthy. How old is she?" asked another buyer.

"I'm not sure. We have had her for about a year and a half now."

"I'm eighteen," she mumbled, just loud enough for them to hear her.

She than was slapped hard across the face and collapsed to the ground.

"Were we talking to you?," the slave master yelled. "You do not speak unless spoken to! Who's her handler?" he yelled to a nearby slaver.

"Frank is, sir."

"Well, where is he?"

"I don't know, sir," answered the slaver. "He never came back from town."

"I don't care how old she is, she will get stronger," the first buyer stated.

"Fine, you can have her for twelve hundred and fifty-six caps," the slave master conceded. "That includes her clothes. I could just keep the clothes and take fifty-six caps off the price if you want," he added coldly.

Chloe held her breath. She had seen many slaves leave naked because their owner chose to take the deal.

"No, I can pay for the clothes too." the man said in an irritated tone.

"Fine with me," the slave master said, turning to a pair of slavers. "You two, take her to registration."

Chloe was relieved that they dragged her to registration instead of beating her for not standing on her own. When she was placed in registration, she saw that the other two, a young man and a young woman, both of whom looked to be a few years older than her, were being bought by the buyer who hadn't said anything. After about ten minutes, she was brought up to the desk by the door. The man behind the desk asked her for her hand. When she held it out, he quickly grabbed it and held on to her thumb. Then he took out a knife and cut a gash across her thumb then jammed it down onto a piece of paper. A slaver came up behind her and took off her slave collar and replaced it with a different, smaller one. She was sent out the door were she was directed to go to the slave master. He was talking to one of the buyers, whose face she couldn't see as he had his back to her. Once she was about ten feet from the two, the man turned around. Chloe stopped in mild surprise when she saw his face; it was the man who had watched the slaver beat her the day before.

"This is your new owner," the slave master announced in a harsh tone. "You do everything he tells you to do from now on. Do you understand?"

Chloe just nodded and looked at the ground.

When the two had gotten about halfway through the town, a man wearing a long trench coat stepped into view. Chloe didn't think anything of it until he raised a scoped magnum and pointed it straight at her. She froze with fear but her new master didn't move. It was almost as if knew this going to happen. Then she heard the man start to mumble.

"Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teaches my hands to the war, and my fingers to fight. My goodness and my fortress. My high tower and my Deliverer. My shield, and He in whom I trust." His hand moved slightly to the left, then he pulled the trigger.

The bullet flew past her head, missing by a mere centimeter, and continued down the crowded street. It hit a prostitute and two men in the head but, it still kept going, through a closing gate, through a slaver, but still, it did not slow down. The projectile passed through the crack of a closing door and entered and exited the slave master's head before it embedded itself in the opposite wall.

People started to scream when the bodies hit the ground. Chloe looked up at the man who just mumbled something else, but found that he had disappeared into the crowd.

**Fallout Revolution**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

**The end… What the hell is that supposed to mean?**

"So what are we going to do now? They aren't going to sell us their land, Clyde,." Justice Gat stated, staring at the Supreme Justice expectantly.

Before Justice Anvil could interject, Supreme Justice Clyde gestured to him.

"Speak."

Whenever Clyde spoke, he did so in the sonorous voice that made him into who he was now. With just a few words, he could speak paragraphs. He could have people cowering in fear or standing with pride with just a slight change in inflection. Like Justice Hammer, he demanded respect before he gave any back.

"Well I know you don't like wasting my people, but I think it's time we used them and… remove this issue." Anvil said slowly. "It may be a bit overkill, but we won't have to worry about someone seeing Hammer's people deal with the problem and cause an uprising."

"We will put it to a vote. We send Anvil's men in; yay or nay?" Clyde said, looking around the room. "Justice Cav?"

"Yay."

"Justice Case?"

"Nay."

"Justice Gat?"

"Yay."

"Justice Steel"?

"Yay."

"Justice Hammer?"

"Yay."

"Justice Anvil?"

"Yay."

"It is decided," Clyde boomed. We send Anvil's men to deal with the issue. Bring in the colonel."

A man flanked by two armored soldiers and wearing a grayish white coat walked in and stood in the middle of the dark circular room. "How may I be of help, Supreme Justice?" he said in a heavy southern accent.

"I want you to send some of your men to a town and I want them to deal with it." Clyde said without hesitation. The colonel didn't need to be told how to do his job; he served one purpose and that was "removing" problems.

"It will be done, Supreme Justice." Then the colonel turned and walked out with his men and the doors closed behind them as they left.

"Are you sure about using them, Cameron?" This came from Case, as only she would dare use his real name while they were in the council chamber. They rarely went by their real names in the chamber, because as long as they were in the House of Justice, they were different people.

"Yes, we have done much for them; now it's time we have them do something for us," Clyde said sternly.

"Yes but still, the Enclave are still quite secretive about their motives."

"I know, but we need them if we want to keep everything we have built from falling apart."

**Elsewhere… on Interstate 40 john Connelly's caravan**

She wasn't very talkative, but then again, having been a slave for over two years, she was probably conditioned not to talk out of turn. She was young, maybe two or three years younger than Jake. She had her hair tied in a ponytail that reached just below her shoulders. It was covered in too much grime for him to know what its natural color was. She looked to be about five foot seven and had dark green eyes. She always looked at the ground, which was normal for a slave. It was the first thing they learned after enslavement and was a less that was literally beaten into them and other times, burned. A typical slave's typical education system went as follows: learn the rules or die. This made them very fast on the uptake, though sometimes that worked to the detriment of their masters as the slaves occasionally would pick up on the wrong methods. Jake glanced back at her again. _So what did she learn that would be useful? _

"Hey, Jake! Get up here," yelled one of the other caravaneers up at the front of the line.

Jake grunted and adjusted his sunglasses. As a caravaneer, he was required to be a part of the group's issues. He quickly turned and snapped his fingers to get the slave's attention and when she looked up, he gestured to her to follow him. She started after him without making a sound. When they reached the front of the line, he saw John, the owner of the caravan, talking to a group of about three other caravaneers and Eli. Eli was standing off to the side with his arms crossed and appeared to be thinking to himself… or he might be praying, Jake had no idea. The man was still wearing his trench coat with riot gear body armor under it, making Jake wonder if he ever took it off.

"What's going on?" Jake asked as he approached the group.

John looked up and saw Jake, then he looked past toward the girl, no doubt wondering why she was up there in the first place. He then returned his attention to Jake. "Some wise guy set up a minefield on the road. We are trying to find someone who knows how to disable mines and, is willing to clear us a path," he said answering Jake's question. He then added, "You got anyone in your group?"

"I don't believe so–" Jake started, but was interrupted by a soft voice from behind him.

"I can."

Jake turned and saw the slave girl looking at him.

"You can disarm land mines?" one of the caravaneers asked and looked a bit shocked that not only had she said something but that she was claiming any skill with explosives. He turned to Jake. "That don't make no damn sense, Jake. How the hell would a slave know how to disarm land mines?"

"I was forced to disarm mines by my first owner."

"Show me," John said, gesturing towards the minefield.

Chloe started forward, but Jake raised a hand to stop her. "She belongs to me," he told John. "You don't get to use her whenever you want."

John looked at him for a moment before speaking. "You can keep any mines that she disarms and sell them."

"Fine." Jake turned to Chloe. "Don't die."

Chloe didn't say anything. She just kept her head down and nodded. She walked over to the closest mine, bent over it and began to tinker. After a few moments, she stood up with the mine in hand and walked over to another which she subsequently disabled. She proceeded to do this three more times. After she had disabled five mines, she walked back to the astonished group of merchants and handed the mines to Jake. She started to go back for another set, but Jake stopped her mid-stride.

"Wait a second." Jake then turned to the nearest pack brahmin and grabbed a large sack off its back. He came back and told that she would continue to disarm the mines while he would follow behind her put the dead mines in the sack. About three hours and nine large sacks of mines later, they had cleared the road enough to get the caravan to continue on its way to Oklahoma City.

Jake had Chloe sit on his supply trailer and count the mines. It was both to give her something to do and to give her a break after disarming the mines. Of course some of the others wouldn't think that she should be getting a break at all because she was a slave, so he used the mine counting as an excuse for it.

**4 hours later…**

They decided to set up camp outside of the ruins of Okemah. They were only about seventy miles east of Oklahoma City. Chloe had finished counting the mines, coming to a total of three hundred fifty-seven frag mines, one hundred twenty-nine pulse mines, and seventy-eight green mines that she had never seen before. She was confused when the caravaneers counted them again because they thought she was lying to them. She was accustomed to being hit when her word was questioned and found it unusual that these men didn't raise a finger. When they were done, they had the same numbers.

She now sat over by one of the five trailers. A short distance away, sitting by a campfire with a couple of others, was Jake, the man who had purchased her. He didn't look to be that old, maybe in the nineteen to twenty area. He also had short brown hair, blue eyes, and must have been around six-foot four as he seemed to tower over most of the people in the caravan. She rubbed her neck. She had an itch on her there, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get it because of the collar. When she looked back over at Jake she was surprised to see him starring at her. She was about to look away when he pointed at her.

"You, come here," he commanded. After a short pause, she got up and walked over to where he sat, keeping her head down. "What is your name?"

Her name?She was amazed that he'd even asked. She'd never been asked for her name in her time as a slave. "C-Chl-Chloe." She stumbled over the word after so many years of not saying it.

"Well then, Chloe, sit down," Jake said.

Chloe could help but look up this time. What was going on? Was this some sort of sick joke about to made at her painful expense? When she looked at him, she saw that he had moved over a bit from where he was sitting to make room for her. After a brief pause, she hesitantly sat down next to him and hugged her legs to her chest, resting her chin on her knees. After a few minutes, Jake looked at her.

"Where did you live before you were put into slavery?" he asked her casually.

"Megaton." When he didn't respond, she glanced at him and saw the confusion on his face. She added, "It's in the Capital Wasteland."

Jake nodded slowly. "So how did you get caught?"

A tear started to form under her right eye as the memories came back to her. "The slavers…they came in disguised as small groups of wastelanders over the course of a few days. When they were ready, at dawn, they took out the guard who watched the gate and then opened it, and let a large group of raiders into the town who…" In her mind, Chloe was suddenly back in Megaton, reliving every horrific moment. She didn't even hear the words she was speaking to Jake, so vivid was the vision. They were coming through the gate, a whole hoard of evil, ugly looking men. She had to run, hide! But where? Moriarty's saloon, that would be a good place. Moriarty was always packing and the building was on high ground. She started to run, when loud bang erupted behind her. She turned and stared open-mouthed at Megaton's sheriff, Lucas Simms. He lifted a blood-soaked hand from his chest, the hole it had been covering spewing crimson. Chloe watched as he fell to his knees, then to the ground, the man's eyes lifeless before he even hit the dirt. She opened her mouth to scream, but the sound was extinguished as she was struck hard in the head. The last image she had of Megaton before everything went black was Simms' son, Harden, kneeling over his fallen father, sobbing uncontrollably. When she woke up again, she'd done so in chains. "After a few days at Evergreen Mills, I overheard one of the slavers talking about how Simms' job went to his son."

After she was done telling the story, no one in the group said a thing. The silence felt like it went on for an eternity. Then the itch came back again, but no matter what she did, she could not get to it as the collar was too tight around her neck.

Chloe felt Jake's hand on her shoulder, causing her to jump.

"Hold still, will you?" he grumbled.

Chloe heard a click followed by a beep, then she felt her neck loosen up. When she put her hand up to her neck, she didn't feel the bulky shape of the collar. When she looked at Jake, she saw him setting the device down.

"There. Feel better?" Chloe nodded slowly. "I will have to put it back on later so that the others don't get after me about it." Chloe looked into the fire and nodded again tears running down her cheek. A little while later, with the crackling flames and chirping crickets seeming to harmonize in a lullaby, she drifted off to sleep.

**8 hours before: about 150 miles west…**

"Well that was one way to do it… I guess," Helen said slowly, looking at the dead raider in front of them. The doomed man had a massive rock smashed into the lower half of his body.

"What? It worked didn't it?" Lana argued defensively.

"Yeah, but a bit gruesome don't you think?" Tom said slowly, checking to see if the raider was truly dead.

"You guys are too soft on this stiff. He must have killed hundreds of people in gruesome ways before this!"

"True. Still, I don't believe I've seen anybody die via raider by having his legs shot out from under him then having a boulder smash him while his left arm was being blown off. At least you didn't tell us about him until after we ate lunch," Tom said as he took what he could from the body.

"Well, he was still screaming so I thought I had time to eat before we came over to get what we needed from him," Lana replied irritably.

"I can't believe you could eat after seeing this," Tom said, gesturing to all of the blood that was splattered all around the area.

"You guys are just hypocrites. I'll be back at the trailer." With that Lana turned and stomped away.

"Sometimes I question her sanity," Helen commented.

"Me too."

"You know that's a bit rude," Helen said sternly.

"What did I do? I was agreeing with you," asked Tom.

"Don't try and hide the fact that you were looking at her butt."

"Was not!" Tom retorted defensively.

"Were too!"

"Was not!"

"Were too!"

"Oh my God, woman!"

**16 Hours later**

Chloe slowly opened her eyes and looked around. She remembered falling asleep, but did not remember seeing the fire sideways. It took her a moment to realize that she was lying down and it wasn't until the surface underneath her shifted slightly that figured out she had her head on Jake's lap. A couple of the men were awake and talking quietly next to the pair. Instinctively, she quickly sat up and tried to move away, but something tugged at her wrist. When she looked at what it was, she was surprised to see that she and Jake were joined at the wrist by a pair of rusty handcuffs.

The sudden move knocked Jake over, waking him up. Initially, he just laid there, staring at his wrist with a look of confusion, but after a moment, he shrugged and started to sit up. "Come here," he said calmly. "I had to make sure you didn't run while I was asleep."

Chloe was perplexed. She had long ago given up on the idea of being free again. Didn't Jake understand she had no intention of running?

Seeing that she didn't understand what he meant, Jake decided to explain. "When slaves get their collar removed, they tend to think ways. I've seen it happen multiple times."

Chloe nodded and tried to keep from looking him in the eye. Jake then reached up and with a click followed by two beeps, the unforgettable pressure around her neck returned. Jake then removed the cuffs and put them in his pocket as he stood and then went over to the trailers.

Chloe just sat there unsure what to do. She hadn't been told to do anything and nobody seemed to be looking at her, so she decided to take a look around the camp.

**10 minutes later…**

Jake had gotten some food and was checking some scavenging gear when it dawned on him that Chloe hadn't eaten anything yet. Feeling guilty, he grabbed a can of Cram, a spork, and a bottle of water. But when he turned to walk over to where he'd left her, he saw she wasn't there. He quickly put the items in his bag and started to look around. He couldn't find her anywhere. He ran back to his trailer and grabbed the collar tracker he'd been given when he bought her. He turned it on and when the screen cleared up, he saw that she had wandered into the town. He sighed with relief when he saw that she was just on the other side of the building they had slept next to. When Jake walked around the building, he saw her looking at something on the ground.

"What are you doing, Chloe?" he asked. She jumped when she heard him speak and quickly turned around and started apologizing for wandering off. Jake couldn't help but smile and shake his head. "Don't worry. It's alright, Chloe. Just tell me next time, okay?" he said, walking over to her. He found that she had been looking at a pile of ash.

"It was a human at one point," Chloe said quietly.

Jake turned towards her. "How did you know that?"

"I've seen it before. It happens sometimes when people get shot with energy weapons," she said, her eyes fixated on the ground.

"Can you please look me in the eye when you talk?" Jake requested.

"O-okay," she stuttered. She looked at him with her large green eyes, but only managed to hold eye contact for a brief few moments before she looked away again. She was unaccustomed to talking to people that way. Jake reached into his bag and handed Chloe the food which she stared at for a moment, amazed that she was given _both_food and water, instead of just one or the other.

They both started to look through the ruins, coming across multiple ash piles as they went. Jake used the group's "first-claim/first-search" method by painting the letters JC on six buildings to mark that he claimed them and were his to go through first. The rules were that when scavenging a town, each member of the forty-three man caravan had rights to claim a certain number of buildings to reserve for first search. This was designed to give everyone a fair chance of scavenging something good. Usually everyone played fair, though some would break the rules by claiming another building; nobody complained unless there weren't enough houses for everyone. The limit was always predetermined by Jake and a randomly selected group. Any extra houses were free for the taking. But office buildings, libraries, or any larger buildings had to be searched by a group. They had to put their symbol on it and once a sizable group was assembled, they would search and take anything of value, splitting everything they found fairly. Though some people wound up getting things that weren't expected.

This was true for the third building Jake claimed. Immediately after walking in, the first thing he saw was the machine sitting outside the bathroom. It was big and round with pipes coming from it and entering the bathroom through the floor and wall. When he walked into the bathroom he saw that the tub, sink, and toilet were clean and that there were cleaning supplies sitting next to the tub as well. After looking around the place a bit more, he went back outside to see that his trailer had been towed over, with Eli watching the Brahmin. Chloe walked past him and into the building, He decided to let her look around, and walked over to Eli.

"Hey Eli, still praying when you shoot?" Jake said, laughing.

"Yes. You still an atheist?" Eli countered with a smile.

Jake simply shrugged. "To be honest, I have no idea what that means. But if it means "jackass", then yes, yes I am." They both laughed for a while.

When they stopped laughing, Jake told Eli what he'd found inside the house wasn't much and they should be done quickly. He turned and went back inside and found Chloe in the bathroom. She'd been about to turn the faucet on the tub when he walked in. She immediately backed away from the faucet looking like a child who'd been caught with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar. "It's okay, Chloe, go ahead," he said warmly.

Chloe reached down and twisted the faucet and she and Jake stood wide-eyed as clean, purified water came out of the faucet.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"Ga' damn!" Sue bellowed, hitting the side of the computer and leaving a dent. Throwing the hand away, he glared at the hand scanner, wishing for it to unlock the door for him. He was interrupted by a scream of pain from behind him. He sighed and then without turning he said: "Come on, it's just a freakin' hand. You'll live!"

"Yeah? Well you didn't just get your hand fucking cut off, did you?" Jason yelled back, clutching his wrist where his hand was supposed to be. "Why did you even cut it off? I could have walked over here and did it without losing my fucking hand!" He was only able to carry on this line of conversation as he was not currently in shock. Sue had kindly – if that was even the word for it – shoved Jason's bleeding stump into the red-hot coals of the campfire to cauterize his wound. Now Jason was minus a hand and suffering from third degree burns on his arm. At present, he believed his life to be two caps shy of being completely shit-filled.

"Come on, don't deny that you would have tried to kill me first chance you had," Sue replied without looking up.

Jason just stared at the giant of a man before responding. "That doesn't make any fucking sense! I can still kill you! I still have one hand!"

Sue paused and thought about it. "You have a point. I could cut off your other hand if it will make you happy."

Despite the excruciating pain that plagued his left arm, Jason's face went another shade ashen. Was he serious? Would he do it? He did seem to be insane.

Sue prodded him with the toe of his enormous boot. "That was a question you know?"

"Uh no, I'm good."

"Ah well. Your loss."

"Why did you take my hand? It doesn't even work on that computer."

"It doesn't? Who's does?" the big man asked, turning to look at him.

"That guy's over there should," Jason said, nodding his head toward a corpse lying a short distance away. Sue nodded and walked over to the body and picked it up. He carried it over to the computer and dropped the corpse, grabbed its hand, and slapped it onto the scanner. There was a beep and a click and the door opened. "A grunt's hand _never_ opens any important doors," he explained condescendingly to Sue. "Of all the poor saps you have to perform amputation on, you have to pick the greenest one out here?" He shut up when Sue glared at him with enough wrath to wilt flowers. They both looked at what was inside the room for a short moment before Jason broke the silence. "What the hell is that?" Jason asked uncertainly. He was wondering why the bosses were so protective of the armory… but honestly he was still lost.

"That my friend, is my new toy." Sue said smiling as he walked into the small room and grabbed the large device.

_Oh hell_, Jason thought grimly. _I'm now "friend" to the nut-job who cut off my hand for the sake of his "toy". I am completely and utterly fucked._

**A short distance away…**

"What do you see?" one figure asked, crouching down next two his partner a short distance from the former talon company camp. He was standing on an outcropped ledge with his partner; both of the figures were wearing old Chinese stealth suits.

"The two opened the door and have the device," the other figure replied looking through a pair of binoculars.

"Do they know what it is?" the first asked.

"No, I don't think they do."

"Good."

The two stood and jumped off the ledge, then started back to where they came from.

**7 days later…**

"Why am I the one carrying this crap?" Jason asked irritatirritablyed. They had walked quite a few miles at that point with Jason carrying all of the stuff Sue had decided to take with them. To him, iIts total weight felt at least must have been three times hiJason's own two hundred and ten pounds. Jason figured he'd probably lost five pounds. He was shocked he could even carry it.

"Because you owe me." Sue replied as if he was king of the world.

"For what?" Jason yelled at the big man.

"For not killing you." Sue stated, hardly even focusing on where he was going or what he was doing.

"I thought you chose not to kill me because you only needed my hand, and probably didn't feel like wasting a bullet on me," Jason shot back starting to get pissed. "So you, without my consent, traded my hand for my life."

"Oh… right," Sue said thinking. "Okay, then I guess it's because I didn'on't want to carry it."

Jason glared daggers at the big man's back and the strange device he carried in a harness made out of a couple belts and a rifle strap so it could be wrapped around Sue's massive bulk. They didn't talk for a large chunk of the day.

**9 hours later…**

"How do you do it?" Jason asked suddenly.

"Do what?" Sue asked looking back at him.

"How do you walk and not make a sound? You're freakin' huge! It just doesn't make sense to me." Jason said woozilycalmly., Hhe glanced over at a rock that they were passing, and found it incredibly difficult to focus on it; like it was moving on its own. After a moment it stopped moving and he could bring it into focusfocus on it. Shaking his head, he looked back at the giant walking in front of him. _Damn him to Hell_, he thought. If he hadn't cut off my hand, my head wouldn't feel like I'd just injected myself with five psycho canisters. _I want to be able to stare at rocks again, damnit!_

"I walk with a purpose. If you don't walk with one, the world will hear you from miles away and it will crush you." Sue said as if explaining his life story.

"That doesn't answer my question." Jason said irritably.

Sue then _did_ proceed to lay out his life's story. "I have been around for a long time, little man. Well at least I think I have. Thirty's a long time, right? Well anyway, with a name like Sue, you either hide and try to not to get noticed, or you can take life by the horns and shoot it in the face. I used to do the hiding, and then I found out that I'm six feet tall and I'm only thirteen years old, but people thought I was nineteen. It was hard for me to hide all that well, so I walked into a bar with a forty-four and shot the four mercs that ran the town and immediately took control. I ran the town for ten years after that. During that time I turned it back into a city and renamed after its pre-war name Pittsburgh. After a while though I found that I wasn't a great leader; I was just better thenthan most of the previous ones. So I got my friend to find someone who could rule the city that could move it forward." Sue laughed then continued. "He said he could do it. I had to explain to him why putting in a guy that solves issues with a gun would not be an improvement for the city. We ended up findin' some kid maybe seventeen years old. She was a bit young but she was smart and she had her grandmother who used to be an overseer in some vault, I think it was Vault 101. Well anyways, her grandmother was able to help her when she needed it. So I told the people that I was twenty three and I had ruled them for ten great years but I could not rule anymore I had to go and finish some things, and that I had chosen a new leader that would continue to rule in my place. Well, I think that the only thing they got out of all that was that their leader was thirteen when he took over." Sue laughed again. "You should have seen their faces."

"So what is it you need to finish?" Jason asked, a little shocked, .and a bit confused. He felt this way because; because this story was relatively… random. The big man didn't seem to focus on any one part of the story, and d instead jumped around a lot.

Sue's face darkened. "I need to finish looking for my dad." He didn't continue, so Jason assumed that Sue was done talking for the time being.

Lana was sitting in the trailer counting the rocks as they passed by… well at least she was trying to count the rocks as they passed. She was bound to miss some of the rocks, as they were going by them at ten miles an hour after all. She was up to 737,894 rocks when Tom called her to come up to the front of the trailer. So Lana counted six more rocks before standing and picking up her sidearm. She put it back into its holster then grabbed her Anti-Material rifle, and walked to the front of the trailer. This trek wouldn't have been hard normally, but today they were hauling a large amount of junk they'd scavenged from some ant-infested warehouse. The resulting towers of assorted crap forced Lana to make a concerted effort not to trip over things. They hadn't looked in most of the boxes they now carried, though they did check them to make sure they weren't empty or at most half full…or, in rare cases, booby-trapped. She and Tom hadn't had time to check them all because apparently – as Lana found out the hard way - shooting and killing the ant queen pisses off all of the other ants. And pissed-off other ants, whose average size is comparable to that of a pre-war motorcycle, tend to cause…problems. _At least we got the pheromones from the thing before we left_, Lana mused, kicking a Vault-Tec bobblehead out of her way and into Tom's room. Tom's "room" as it were, was nothing more than a small compartment near the front of the trailer. After the ant warehouse, it too was filled with boxes and crates from floor to ceiling.

Tom looked up at Lana from the driver's seat as she stepped down from a stack of crates. "How many shots you got left for that thing?" he asked, looking at the rifle.

"Two," Lana said. She sat in the passenger seat next to him and removed the clip from the rifle. It was cut down so it could only hold four bullets; Lana had trimmed down a few of the parts to reduce the overall weight to about fifteen pounds. "How many can we get at the Den?"

"Well that's gonna be hard to know until we sell all of this crap. But we can for sure get three more shots," Tom replied. His voice though was not very positive. The rifle took a lot to use, much more than strength alone, as was the running assumption. In Oklahoma, the gun was not just expensive; the bullets were too, most times going for about two-hundred caps a piece. "The price of .50 cal ammo fluctuates from time to time, so it's hard to tell. We can only afford to spend six-hundred on the bullets and another fifty for any parts you might need for the rifle."

They were both silent for a moment before Lana looked over to the crates stacked all over the extended and heavily upgraded trailer. "We probably should go through these. To see what we got here."

"Good idea, maybe we will find some ammo for the .Anti-Material" Helen stated hopefully.

"Yeah let's hope," Tom said as he stood, locking the wheel in place. He, and walked over to the closest crate and opened the lid.

"So while you two do that who's going to drive?" Helen asked casually.

"Right." Lana stood and walked over to the engine and shut it off causing the trailer to slow to a stop. "We can get there tomorrow."

**Blancc, Bar Present Day**

"Okay, wait a second how do we now you're telling us the truth here and not bullshitting us?" Loose asked. He was the man in the brown coveralls that had been playing cards earlier.

"Well to be honest, I never said you had to believe me," the old man replied as he accepted another bottle of whiskey from the bartender. "Either way, I don't care what you believe, that's your choice."

"So how do you even know three sides of the same story?" the man in the leather armor asked.

The old man laughed and replied. "They told me."

Eli had been standing outside the building for about an hour before he decided to go inside and check on Jake. He was content with standing outside and waiting, but he did want to finish searching the other buildings before the end of the day. When he entered the house, he was a bit surprised to see Jake sitting on a box next to a door and a strange tank like machine.

"Hey Eli, you won't believe what I found in this place," Jake said cheerfully when he saw Eli walk in. "This is a boiler with a purifier of sorts built onto it."

"Really? That's a nice find, but what are you gonna do with it?" Eli asked while looking the device over. Before Jake could reply he realized something was missing. "Where's the girl?"

"She's in the bathroom. I told her to clean herself up." Jake said nodding his head to the door next to him. "I don't want her getting sick or anything."

"Makes sense, but we probably should move on to the next house and clean it out before someone else sneaks in and takes the good stuff." Eli said as he walked back to the door. "Are those collars water proof?" he said turning back to Jake.

"No." Jake replied holding up the collar. "No way out of the room that I wouldn't hear."

"Oh… Well I still…" Eli stopped talking when he saw the door open and Chloe walked out. She looked different: her hair was brighter and didn't have black streaks through it anymore. Her clothes were different to; they looked clean and a little damp indicating that she must have washed them as well. "Weren't her clothes grey when you got her?" Jake didn't answer. He just stood and put the collar back on.

"Yes they were." Chloe muttered; Eli almost didn't hear her.

"Well I'm not going to lie to you. This is a nice gun," Tom said looking at the pistol they had found in one of the boxes.

"What type is it?" Lana asked. She was busy piling things into a mound of junk they decided was not worth keeping.

"Uh… says carbon fifteen." Tom turned the pistol over in his hands, inspecting it. Huh, never heard of it, but it has a drum clip, a crappy scope, and uses .223 shells; so the bullets will be easy to come by." He replied looking over the gun.

"I agree, never heard of it." Lana said as she tossed a toy bear into the junk pile. "So when will we get there?"

Tom looked out the window of the trailer at the small city they were slowly approaching. "How far is that Helen?"

"Let me check." The AI replied. Tom grabbed his head as the familiar feeling of a metal spike slamming through his skull flowed into his cerebrum. When he looked back up through the window, his left eye was orange. "Well, it would seem to me that it will take us about thirty minutes as long as we stay at the same speed and nothing stops us," Helen said after a brief pause.

"Well that's good. I don't think I can last much longer on the food we find out in the Wastes," Lana said cheerfully. "Hey, I just found another Fission battery!" she exclaimed holding up the beat up box-like object.

"Good! One more we'll be set," Tom replied looking over to her. His eye had started to change back. He was glad of this as he knew that Lana was still disturbed greatly by it. "You find anything else in those boxes?"

"Not much, just basic stuff with some value," Lana answered holding up an old .32 caliber revolver. "I'd keep it, but neither of us use .32 rounds so it's not worth keeping."

"Agreed."

**45 minutes 27 seconds later…**

"Well, that was a good haul," Tom said happily as he counted the caps they just earned from one of the salesmen in the small city known by most as the Den. No one really knew why it was called that; the name just sort of caught on. "We've got 3,432 caps. We practically bankrupted him."

"To be honest, I thought he would have stopped buying after two thousand," Lana stated. "You really know how to bargain. So now we can buy at least eight shots for my rifle!" she exclaimed giddily.

"No, we'll only be buying six for now. The price went up while we were gone," Tom explained.

"Oh…" Lana said, disappointed. "You know, there is a way we could get them for free…"

Tom whirled on her when she said this. "No! Absolutely not. We are not going back to doing that again, Lana. We are better than that."

"Come on," Lana begged. You and I both know that they have piles of bullets in there that they are just hiding away so as that they can raise the prices and earn a massive profit!"

"I said no. We are not going back to stealing, especially from the Vanguard. Either way, I highly doubt that the Vanguard withholds supplies to increase demand. We are done with this conversation," Tom stated firmly, before walking off to the shop that sold the .50 caliber rounds.

**A very short distance away…**

"Okay, tell me again _why_ we are breaking into the Vanguard's ammunition plant?" Jason asked Sue, who was holding a padded baseball bat.

He and Sue were pressed up against the wall of the building designated as the official Vanguard ammunition manufacturing plant. To think that the other day he really wanted to see Sue lying face down in a ditch somewhere, but know he was helping him break into a munitions factory. Sue had stashed the loot they got from the mercenary camp in a small cave just a short distance from the place. It was tWhere that Suhe decided that breaking into a Vanguard weapons plant would be a fun idea.

"Because they have massive stockpiles of bullets that they sit on so that they can raise the prices and get rich off of the profit." Before Jason could ask another question Sue put his finger to his lip and mouthed for him to be silent.

Jason listened and heard the footsteps approaching their hiding place. Both men didn't make a sound, much less breathe as a guard walked right past them, completely oblivious to the two intruders. Sue then crept up behind him and swung the bat as hard as he could. It connected and caused the guard to fly into a wall about thirteen feet away.

"Let's go." Sue whispered and ran around the corner.

"Why don't you just kill me now?" Jason muttered before running after Sue. He rounded the corner and found himself staring down the barrel of Sue's hand cannon.

"You sure about that?" the giant asked.

"No no… I was just being sarcastic!"

"Ha, I know!" Sue laughed, putting his gun back into its holster. He then turned and ran at a rather quick but scarily quiet pace into the factory.

**5 minutes and 16 guards later…**

"Okay what do you want to take?" Jason asked looking at all of the different types of ammo boxes that were stacked to the ceiling in one of seven enormous storage rooms.

"Don't worry 'bout that too much. We'll just grab what we want," Sue answered. "Okay, which do you prefer nine mill or ten?" he asked, looking in a crate.

"Wait, what? You're gonna give me a gun?" Jason asked looking over at him in astonishment.

"Why are you so shocked? I never took your gun," Sue said, looking back to the mercenary. His face split into a grin at the sight of the smaller man's face as he looked down to his holster and saw his gun was still there. "You didn't even know you still had your gun did you?" Sue started to laugh his head off as Jason's face turned red with embarrassment. "Okay, well you already have a nine so we'll just get you ammo for that."

"Actually I prefer 357s. They gave me the nine," Jason said casually.

"Oh, so you like the classics!" Sue exclaimed, pulling out a box of 357 rounds and pouring its contents into a sack that they'd 'liberated' from a supply closet.

"Hey they have a bunch of boxes of .24 rounds right here. Should we take them?" Jason asked, holding up one of the boxes.

"Grab two. I don't have anything that uses them, but I could sell them if I have to," Sue replied as he grabbed a crate of twenty-five mm grenade rounds and dumped it into the sack. He tied it shut and grabbed another sack and started to fill it with bullets. Jason grabbed two boxes of fifty mg rounds in his sack. They were relatively quiet while they filled up the rest of the sacks. Sue said they were going for two bags each, but of course that meant that Sue was going to take four. When they finished, they made sure to put all the crates back where they belonged and snuck out the way they came in, and after three minutes and eight of the guards who'd started to gain consciousness again they were back to were they stashed the weapons and gear from Sue's raid on the Talon Company camp. After going through the equipment, they took a large amount of guns and armor and walked to the small city known as the Den to sell them.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Jason saw a rather strange trailer sitting outside the gates to the Den as they approached the city. It had metal plates welded onto it, including a massive plate on the side of the trailer that could easily be three inches thick. There was also a strange metal box welded to the top of the trailer with what appeared to be small doors built into it. _Must be storage space, _Jason thought to himself. It also had a second set of wheels built onto the front of it with tires that shockingly weren't flat. The two people sitting outside the trailer were even weirder then the trailer itself. One was a young man who was sitting next to the door of the trailer and using the side of the vehicle as a back rest; the other was a young girl who was laying on her back in his lap, her legs over his left shoulder and propped up against the trailer's armored hull. The man appeared to be cleaning an extensively modified Marksmen carbine and was using the girl's belly as a table of sorts to hold the various parts of the rifle and cleaning materials. The girl looked bored and was talking to the man about something or another.

As Jason and Sue passed the trailer the girl looked over at them, her eyes widening slightly at the sight of Sue, and then she glanced over to Jason. This time, her eyes had a quizzical look in them. She punched the man in the shoulder and pointed at the Jason. The man looked up and tilted his head to the side slightly. Jason decided to keep walking but when they were almost past the two, the man spoke up.

"Hey, you two goin' to sell those guns?" Although his voice sounded relaxed and calm, he seemed to talk a bit louder than necessary. He also sounded like he could put the gun back together and shoot both Jason and Sue before they realized what he was doing.

"Yes. Yes, we are," Sue replied, stopping and turning to face the odd pair with a slight smile. "Why? You see something you like?"

"Yeah. The 12.7 sub. We've been lookin for one. How much do you want for it?" asked the man. The girl didn't move or say anything. She just regarded them curiously.

"Well…let me see," Sue muttered, scratching his bearded chin. "I would think this'd go for 'bout three thousand caps 'round these parts. But…" he let the thought hang in the air momentarily, "I feel I could sell it for twenty-five hundred caps."

"How about two thousand?" the man offered.

"Sorry I can't do that trade. I'd be losing out on too many caps. You understand don't you?" Sue asked before he started to turn and leave.

"Wait. I can make another offer," the man said.

"I'm listening," Sue answered.

The man looked down at the girl and nodded. She in turn adjusted her position then reached under the trailer and pulled out a rectangular rifle box. She handed it to the man who opened it to reveal an RCW. "These go for twenty-five. We could trade."

Sue studied the rifle for a moment and then reached down to pick it up. Before he could touch it however, the girl had pulled out an odd looking pistol and was now holding it under Sue's chin. Sue's smile flickered briefly but then quickly returned. "Calm down, I just wanted to see if it is in good condition."

"Ask next time. She's willing to drop a boulder on your ass and leave you there 'til you die," the man stated as he pulled the RCW out of its case and handed it to Sue.

"She's much more dangerous than she looks. I won't under estimate her again," Sue replied with a slight chuckle as the girl put the pistol back in a holster on her leg.

"She's also a great shot. So is it a deal or not?" the man asked flatly.

"Sure why not. Jason, give me the sub mac," the giant said, reaching a massive arm behind him in Jason's direction. J ason didn't even realize they had one or that he was carrying it; but then he saw it was hanging from a strap on his left side out of reach, its green finish and semi square shape unmistakable. Sue must have gotten it from the Talon Company armory.

"I can't." Jason replied.

"Why not?" Sue asked turning to look at Jason.

"Because it's on my left side," Jason replied simply.

"So what's stopping you?" Sue demanded in a low voice.

Jason raised his arm showing the stump wrapped in an old shirt. "This is where my hand is supposed to be. You fucking cut it off. Remember, you asshole?" Jason answered with an equally low voice.

"Oh… right." Sue turned and grabbed the sub machinegun off of Jason's back and handed it to the strange man. "Good doing business with you. By the way I never got your name."

"Likewise. I'm Tom, and this is Lana," the man replied, taking the gun and looking it over.

"Nice to meet ya. The name's Sue. Maybe we'll run into each other again." Sue then turned back to the gates. The girl seemed to stifle a laugh.

"I don't know about you, but I think that girl might be a bit crazy." Jason said when they were out of earshot.

"Meh. I ain't exactly sane either." Sue replied with a slight shrug.

"No shit."

…

"I think that big guy isn't right in the head," Lana said to no one in particular as the two men entered the city.

"I don't think you're sane. You do realize that if he looked closer at your pistol he would have seen that it wasn't loaded, right?" Tom asked as he went back to cleaning the carbine.

"Yeah, but it still looks like it's loaded as long as they're standing close enough. Either way, how many hand guns have a drum – wait! You think I'm crazy?" Lana exclaimed, propping herself up on her hands to where she was sitting up slightly.

"I do." Helen answered.

"Well I think you both are crazy!" Lana argued back.

"I might be," Tom replied.

"I know I am." Helen said in an oddly cheerful way.

"Wow, I would have thought I'd have gotten over that by now," Lana said, lying back again; obviously trying to change the subject.

"What?" Tom asked.

"You talking. You will be saying something, and then you stop, and suddenly you will be talking again but with a different voice… it's… strange," she explained staring at Tom and making him uncomfortable.

"Really? I never really noticed."

"You haven't?" Lana gasped, sitting up all the way, her face now mere inches from Tom's, causing the parts to the gun to fall off of her. To people walking by it looked like she'd just bent herself in half to accomplish the feat. Which she probably had.

"No, not really I can't see myself," Tom answered frankly. "Though I do find it weird when my mouth moves and I'm not the one in control."

"Oh really?" Lana asked, lying back down while Tom picked up the parts to the gun.

"Yeah."

…

It was getting dark out when Jake reached the last house to clear out. The caravan had been in the town for two days and John wanted to leave the following morning. Which to Jake was honestly a great thing since the settlement looked as though it had been inhabited relatively recently. But no one was there any more. Some of the others had found large amounts of ash scattered around the town in random locations, which was causing the old caravanner Crazy Pete to go even crazier. The old man seemed to have a trigger when it came to the weird and unknown.

"Hey Jake?" Eli called from the trailer, "Why'd ya choose this house? A little on the small side for ya don'tcha' think?" Jake glanced back at his friend then looked over to where Chloe was staring curiously at the house. But when she noticed he had turned around seemed to take a strange interest in a rock at her feet.

"Actually, I wanted the one next to it, but I decided to let the new kid have it instead," Jake replied turning back to the house. "You think you can unlock this door?"

"Can I?" Eli asked with a look of overly exaggerated astonishment. "I'm hurt Jake, really I am." Eli drew his magnum and fired two rounds into each of the hinges on the door. When he tried to follow that up with a shot into the lock, the gun responded with a _click_. "Huh, fucking old thing's jammed again. It's been doing this since I killed that one guy back in the town we got the girl from. You know, the slaver?" Chloe looked up at him with an expression of shock that disappeared almost immediately as she returned her attention to the rock. Eli put the gun back in its holster and took a baseball bat out of the trailer. He hefted it a little as if checking the weight, then hurled it at the door like a javelin. The bat smashed into the door causing it to fall into the house. "There, now I believe it's unlocked. If it's not give me a holler and I'll come fix it."

"Thanks. Chloe, let's go," Jake ordered, turning to the girl. Chloe had picked up the rock and was looking at it with a strange unreadable expression. "Chloe?" She looked up at him briefly before turning back at the ground and walking over to him.

"I found the key," she stated shyly, holding out a key in one hand and the rock she'd been looking at in the other.

"The key?" Jake asked, looking at the two objects in her hand. "To what?"

"The house."

"Where did you find it?" Jake wondered, taking the currently useless key from her. Chloe didn't reply, instead rotating the rock to show that it was hollowed out. Jake looked at it dumbfounded, "How did you know?"

"Some raiders use these to create mines to kill unsuspecting travelers," Chloe explained still looking at the ground. "But they aren't real rocks. They all look very similar to each other though, and were made by some pre-war company. They aren't hard to spot if you know what to look for."

"How did you know it wasn't an explosive?" Eli asked from behind her causing her to flinch.

"Because the raiders in this area don't have energy weapons."

"What do you mean?" Jake asked, wondering how she would know that or how it was relevant.

"Well, it is a weapon used by raiders mostly, and nobody would place a mine outside their house or in the middle of town for that matter," She explained lowering her hands. "And since everyone here was killed by energy weapons I don't see raiders as the ones who attacked this place. Either way, the closest raiders were killed too."

"Wait… How did you know the people who lived here were killed by energy weapons?" Jake asked her, spinning around to face her., not sure how this ,with our actions. :)p slightlythe ammo dump or that S had it or whatever. 2, when adding in qual "And how do you know the raiders were killed too?"

"The ashes scattered around the town and by the truck we passed on our way here was a raider camp, or I think it was," she replied, appearing to be on the verge of tears. Jake hadn't even considered the chance that the ashes they were finding were once people, but the reason he didn't even consider it was because in his mind, the military were the only ones allowed to have energy weapons. He had never seen what the technology could actually do.

"Well whoever did it they are long gone, so let's deal with clearing the house and move on," Eli stated, walking past them as he reloaded his gun. Jake turned around and walked into the house, slipping the key into his pocket. _How did we miss the truck outside of town?_ Jake pondered as he moved. Chloe continued to stand looking at the ground before bending down, and picking up another rock and shook its contents into her hand.

…

"I have this strange tingling feeling in my gut and it won't go away. Do you know what it is?" Lana asked, holding her stomach.

Tom returned a confused look to her from the front of the trailer. "I think you're feeling guilty about something."

"This is guilt? Why am I feeling guilty? I never feel guilty," Lana protested, sitting down on a stack of crates. "Guilt sucks! How do you guys deal with it?"

"Well normally I would avoid doing things that would make me feel guilty, and beyond that I've had a lot of time to learn to deal with it. But for you, I'm shocked you're feeling any at all. You're eighteen and not even a single ounce of guilt has affected you. Until now of course. You're just gonna have to tough it out, I guess," Tom replied in a somewhat mocking voice.

"I'm nineteen, Tom," Lana snapped, taking a bottle of whiskey out of a box next to her. "Why would I be feeling guilty though?" she asked again.

"Really? My bad on your age. As for the guilt, well we did kinda fuck over those two back at the Den, so maybe that's the reason," Tom said turning off the trailer's motor. "Because having an energy weapon is illegal and could cause Vanguard soldiers to shoot you on the spot." He explained, turning around to see Lana struggling to get the cork off of the bottle.

"I wonder why it's such a big deal to them? There aren't a lot of e-guns in Oklahoma as it is, but they really are cracking down on people who have them." Helen commented. Tom took the bottle of whiskey from Lana who had found a hammer and had been attempting to break the bottle open with it.

"I don't know and honestly don't care; it doesn't affect us normally, so we don't need to worry about it." Tom pulled the cork out of the bottle and handed it back to Lana.

"What about Big Bertha? We can't use it at all because of the ban," Helen stated.

"We wouldn't use it much anyway; the fucking thing dislocated my shoulder last time I used it," Lana replied, downing half of the bottle of whiskey. "And yet… I have this feeling that I'm going to end up using it in the next few weeks."

"Very unlikely. Let's lock up and get some sleep. I got a new job for us to do in the morning," Tom said walking over to the door and rotated the locking mechanism.

"What's the target?" Lana asked standing up.

"Some caravan owner who is smuggling illegal drugs or something into the capital."

…

"I blame you for this you know!" Jason yelled from behind a shop counter, which conveniently had a two inch thick metal plate built into it.

"Ah shut the hell up!" Sue shouted back, before shooting at the Vanguard soldiers that had the pair pinned down.

When they had come into town everything had been great. They'd managed to sell most of the stolen weaponry to the multitude of merchants in the city, but when Sue tried to sell the RCW, the merchant refused to buy it. Some soldiers had spotted the gun and immediately pulled their own weapons. The shooting hadn't started until Sue had turned and ran, leaving Jason staring down the gun barrels with his hand and stump above his head. How he'd managed not to get hit and rejoin Sue in the process, he didn't know.

"I knew we couldn't trust those two!" Jason growled, struggling to reload his gun with only one hand. _Great time to decide I like revolvers_, Jason thought. He then noticed that the shop owner who had been gunned down at the start of the fight had a 10mm pistol tucked into the back of his belt. Leaning over to the body, he took the pistol and quickly scrambled back when a hail of bullets hit the ground around the corpse. The gun looked like it could shoot at least, but the sights were screwed up and parts of it seemed a bit loose, but it would work… hopefully. Glancing around the side of the counter, Jason saw four soldiers armed with service rifles and a fifth – most likely an officer – with a lever-action shotgun across the road. Another two were laying in the road most likely dead. Raising the pistol he sighted up on one of the soldiers head and fired three quick shots at him. Only one of the bullets hit and it wasn't at all near the man's head. The soldier dropped to the ground hold his hands between his legs, screaming.

"You screamin' over there?" Sue shouted.

"Nah!" Jason replied, "just shot a man's balls off." He heard a load bellowing laugh coming from Sue's direction.

"Let me guess, you did that on accident?" Sue shouted back before taking a shot at the officer with the shotgun. He missed and instead blew the leg off of another soldier.

"No! I – I did it on purpose!" Jason really wished he hadn't lost his left hand. He wasn't right handed. He fired a few shots at the officer and managed to get a lucky hit in the man's in the neck, killing him almost immediately.

"Riiiiight… Hey, that was my kill!" Sue bellowed.

Jason looked around the other side of the counter to see where Sue was at. He found him sitting behind a dumpster reloading his oversized revolver with bullets that looked like 25mm grenade rounds, but with a more rounded top. Before Jason could lean back behind cover, a bullet hit him in the chest.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: The Rift, Part 1 Curse of the Old World

"Justice Clyde, we have found a pair of bounty hunters to… remove the caravan problem for us," the Enclave officer reported.

"Are you sure they know what happened?" Clyde asked, keeping his question vague. Enclave soldiers were good at many things, but they tended to struggle with anything short of target elimination, intimidation, or battlefield tactics; diplomacy, bribery, and simply talking were not their strong suits. In Clyde's opinion, this was true about every single Enclave soldier and officer, the only two exceptions he allowed being Colonel Andrews and Justice Anvil. Both men could talk a Deathclaw into a ceasefire; it made Clyde uncomfortable being around the two for long periods of time.

"Yes, one of the caravanners appears to have caught on. They were looking at the ash for a while and then seemed to realize what it was," the officer replied, interrupting Clyde's train of thought. "It was one of the girls. Looked like she had some sort of collar around her neck."

Clyde started to ask for a physical description of the girl, but thought better of it. The officer had just proven his theory about Enclave priorities. Instead, he sighed and then said, "Just make sure they die… and if the bounty hunter interacts with them at all, remove him too." With that Clyde walked out of the briefing room.

"It was a man and a woman…" the soldier mumbled as he left through a hidden door.

…..

Jason's head was ringing and he wasn't sure why. He'd been shot in the chest not the head. Luckily his armor had stopped the bullet, but it knocked him back into a set of shelves.

"Hey Jason! You alive?" Sue bellowed as he lumbered towards him.

"I'm not… sure… maybe," Jason wheezed. He then began coughing so hard, he feared his lungs would come out.

"Good. I didn't want to carry all your shit too," Sue said, standing over Jason with an outstretched hand. Jason grabbed it and was hauled off the ground. "Good thing you were wearing that helmet, because when you got shot, a stray bullet hit a propane tank in the stall next to you." Jason blinked, still not quite comprehending. "Man, you should have seen it!" the giant went on. "You went flyin' through about six more booths before crashin' in here!"

"I'm wearing a helmet?" Jason asked dizzily, reaching up for his head.

"Yeah… when did you put that on anyways? Don't recall you havin' one."

"I don't know, probably four stalls and a concussion back," Jason replied sarcastically. "What happened to the soldiers?" Jason didn't wait for Sue to answer. He looked around, and then started back to where he had been shot; this wasn't hard there was a trail of destruction to follow. As he picked his way through the wreckage, he found pieces of Talon company armor scattered about, and it took him until he was half way through the last stall to realize it was his armor and that it was completely destroyed. "How am I still alive?"

"I was wonderin' that myself," Sue replied from behind him. "I mean, look at this. How did you miss these?" Jason turned to see what Sue was talking about. Two broken pipes sticking out of either side of the hole in the wall. The hole that he'd made.

Jason shrugged, wiping some dust off his what remained of his armor. "Luck maybe?"

"Well if it is, it makes you one hell of a lucky bastard," Sue said with a hearty laugh and slapped Jason on the back causing him to stumble forward and wince in pain. "Now let's go kill some fuckin' backstabbers!"

"Wait, what? Who?" Jason asked moving aside a rifle one of the soldiers had dropped, wishing he had two hands so that he could use it. He patted the dead man down, and, after finding nothing of value, ended up taking a nine millimeter from a holster that at one point been attached to more than just a leg that was lying near the corpse.

"The two who gave us the laser gun, remember? They must have known that the soldiers would attack us. Why else would they have traded us the damned thing?" Sue replied angrily. "They simply took something of equal value that could be sold."

"Why not? What else do I have to do anyways?" Jason said, looking for some new armor among the deserted stalls.

….

The flesh tasted sweet; the muscle was stringy and chewy, whereas the fat was juicy and salty. The blood gave it a bit of a metallic taste, but it was a welcome one; it ran down her throat like thick water. The blood was everywhere; the ground, her hands, her chin, even her arms and chest were covered in the crimson liquid. Looking up as she gnawed on a bone, she saw herself in a dirty mirror that was leaning against a wall nearby. Her skin and torn cloths were stained in blood. She simply smiled and continued to eat. She noticed it had gotten into her hair as well. The blood turned her brown hair into a dark red sticky mane. No matter. Like the red that stained the blue vault suit she wore, it would come out. Looking at her hands, she studied what was left of the human arm, which had been ripped off at the shoulder. It still had bits of clothing on it but what remained now was mostly just torn strands of muscle and chunks of grey fat and bone. She tossed the arm aside and grabbed a blood-soaked shard of glass that had been laying on the ground nearby. She turned to the disfigured pile of remains that had at one point been a man, and was about to cut another chunk off when she noticed that something was off about the corpse. Its left eye, the only one remaining, was orange and appeared to be looking right at her. She moved closer to what once had been the man's head and peered at it.

Then it dawned on her. With a scream she scurried away from the body, never taking her eyes off it until she hit something hard. It was the wall, preventing her from moving any farther from the mutilated body – no, _thing!_ She started to cry out of horror at what she had done.

"It's going to be alright, you can fight through it."

The voice had come from the body.

…

Lana awoke screaming and tried to stand up but found herself held in place by a pair of strong hands.

"It's going to be alright Lana just calm down you can fight through this." Tom said softly from behind her.

Lana was covered from head to toe in sweat and her muscles felt stiff, her jaw, hurt. Looking around slowly, she found herself in the trailer sitting in Tom's lap, in what passed as her room. He had her held firmly to him so she wouldn't move; one arm was wrapped around her chest the other held her head in place. Her legs were chained to the floor.

"I-I killed you Tom…" she mumbled, after she found her voice.

"It's alright; I'm still alive and kicking," he replied with a humorless laugh.

"When will it end, when will I not have to suffer through this?" Lana asked trying not to cry, even though she was pretty sure she already was. She knew what Tom's answer would be; she asked him this question every single time she had a night terror, and every single time, he responded the same way.

"I don't know Lana, I really don't," he said, his hold on her still firm. "I injected you with the medication a few minutes ago. It will pass soon."

They sat in silence for almost an hour as the serum took effect. "How long do you think we will have to wait for the caravan to pass by?" Lana asked as a familiar fog-like feeling started to make her mind to become fuzzy. Her body would start to loosen up soon, too, which meant it was almost over. Regardless, she still needed to try and take her mind off her ordeal.

"About three days. We can set up for them in the morning. After this job, we'll be able to buy some better medical supplies."

"Let's hope we don't die, then."

"Don't be so negative, you're the best shot in the state. The odds of them having someone who could match you would be very unlikely," Tom replied.

Lana didn't say anything; she was having a hard time understanding his words. Her head was becoming cloudy and blurred from the drugs. That meant Tom would be able to release her, soon. For some reason though, the pain in her jaw wasn't going away. Normally, any pain would have subsided by this point. She must have hurt her jaw while she was dreaming. The three of them were used to these nightmares, they had been occurring for years; at first it seemed stressful and difficult… and frightening; with the medication it was easier to deal with, but in no way less horrific. Her mind shut down as the medicine's full effects hit.

…

"You told me the medicine would heal her," Tom said darkly.

"Yes I did, but it will still take time. Nothing works immediately, you should know that by now," Helen answered. Tom had left Lana chained to the floor of her room in the back of the trailer; she was usually safe at this stage, but they had to be sure. As the medicine slowly rebooted her body, Lana would sometimes twitch violently. "Also, if we had the appropriate medical supplies, it would take less time."

"I'm working on that," Tom said, turning to pull a crate out of a compartment above his head. "After this job, we'll be able to afford better medication."

He started to take out the items in the box. For the most part they were just parts for explosive traps which they had collected over the years. It also contained a bottle of whiskey and a small thirty-two millimeter revolver. The bottle had "Last One" written on the side of it; he knew what it was for. Both he and Lana had put it there a couple years before. Tom ground his teeth and set the bottle and the gun to the side and then finished emptying the box.

"So what's the plan?" Helen asked. Tom knew she could simply look inside his mind to find the answer, but hearing her ask him felt more…normal. He had a feeling Helen made an effort to cater to the needs of her host.

"Well," he began, leaning back against the wall, "as they are moving through the Rift…"

**Two days later…**

The Oklahoma Rift, the largest scar in North America; or at least it was to anybody who had seen it in person. Simply called "the Rift" by many, it was seventeen miles across at its widest and stretched southwesterly from Bartlesville to Denton, Texas. The Rift did not draw its origin from the bombs that had destroyed the world so long ago; rather, it was the product of stupidity that the bombs failed to eradicate.

In the years following the apocalypse, survivors, or their descendants, had branched out from their original places of refuge to seek out resources that had once been taken for granted. One such group hailed from Texas, a ragtag group of would-be miners out of Plano. With machinery scavenged or cobbled together from an assortment of parts and scrap, the miners journeyed north from the ruins of the Dallas metroplex in search of whatever raw materials they could find. West Virginia, they knew, had been coal country in centuries past, but their equipment would not have made the trek. So, they had opted instead for eastern Oklahoma. This area of the state had a history of coal at one point as well, but whether any still remained was anyone's guess. The miners had made it to their destination, an area just outside of Wewoka. There, they started a dig site; the only problem was that none of them knew the first thing about how to effectively search for ore. So, they dug and excavated, deeper and deeper, until they hit a formation they couldn't punch through. But like any good mining crew, they came prepared, with explosives. Their demolitions specialist had been more than a little overzealous with his application of his craft and rigged the blockage with nearly half of the crew's stock. Once all personnel were clear of the blast site, he'd triggered the detonation. Stories would later tell that the sun rose twice that day in Oklahoma. The "formation" the miners could not penetrate was the hardened exterior of one of in a chain of U. S. military munitions bunkers buried deep underground. The bunker's contents, a GBU-43/B, more commonly known as the Mother of All Bombs. Only, there hadn't been just one. These bunkers were an off-site extension of the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant, designed to house the excess or outdated ordinance of the military. The line of bunkers ran from just south of Prague to the woods outside of Holdenville. The miners' explosives caused the contents of one bunker to go critical and when that one when up, it caused a chain reaction that destroyed the entire line of shelters. The blast caused tremendous seismic damage and vast portions of the landscape were swallowed by the earth, courtesy of the aftershocks. The worst of it had been the bisection of the Red River which now ran true until it hit the Rift, whereupon it flowed south into Texas out of the newly formed Red River Falls.

The Rift, while certainly large, was not as gigantic as some made it out to be. Instead, it was actually a series of enormous fissures the made an almost dashed line across Oklahoma until they terminated at their respective ends. The most convenient way across was through the I, a land bridge made up in large part of the remains of Interstate 40. Where there wasn't earth and pavement to pass over, spans of cable and metal plating had been strung between the cliffs. There were other crossings to be sure, but they were out in the less civilized regions of the Wasteland, whereas the I was centrally located, and controlled and maintained by the Vanguard. No one knew how the I had survived and very few actually cared; all that mattered was that the I was the easiest and most secure way to get to Oklahoma City from the East.

The Vanguard saw security along the I as its primary concern, and as its greatest asset. By building checkpoints and outposts along the route to keep it clear of highwaymen, raiders, and the occasional ghoul like creatures known as Rift reavers, they were able to ensure the safe passage of travelers and turn a profit in the process. The outposts totaled three in all and each housed a small platoon's worth of soldiers. Each of the three largest "islands" of the I held an outpost and each outpost was responsible for monitoring two of the six checkpoints – "stations" – interspersed along the route. At each checkpoint, the Vanguard garrison charged a small fee for each person to pass through. It was a nominal sum, usually five to ten caps per person per stop. The caps went towards trading for supplies that the many of the caravans carried. This was how the garrisons were resupplied most of the time as far as rations were concerned. Their munitions and armor were brought in specially.

"So, you still scared of heights, Jake?" Eli asked, chuckling as he looked over a guardrail down into the deep chasm. The convoy was sitting idle, one of many in the long line of travelers waiting to pass through a checkpoint on the I.

Standing a few feet away, Jake glanced over at his friend. "You know that I've never been afraid of heights."

Eli laughed and nodded. "Yeah, you're right. I know you're not. But she is though."

"She? She who?"

"You know," Eli said, flicking his gaze back to the trailers. "She, as in _her._"

Jake followed Eli's eyes and saw Chloe standing next to his and Eli's trailer, fumbling with something in her hands; she looked horribly uncomfortable and appeared to be trying her best to not show it. She was trembling, Jake now saw. "Poor thing's practically scared stiff."

"I wonder when she's going to catch on to the fact, that you really don't care what she does."

"I care if she wanders off."

"Well yeah, I feel the same about you," said Eli. "You might show up with a baby mole rat and ask if we can keep it." He picked up a rock and seemed to check its weight shook his head and tossed it into the great canyon behind him. "And I fully understand your reasons for buying her and all, being the gentleman that you are , but if you were going to have me kill the man, was it really necessary to actually give him the money?"

"Yes, there were many other slavers there," Jake answered. Eli picked up another rock and held it for a moment before shaking his head again and tossing it behind him. "They could have guessed it was us if they found that not all the money was there. What are you doing?" Eli had thrown another rock away.

"Experimenting." Picking up another stone and seeming satisfied, Eli tossed it up into the air and caught it when it fell. "Watch this." He turned and threw the rock past Jake and then quickly looked away at the same time Jake turned to see where it had gone. Half way around, he heard a _thunk_ and a squeal of surprise. The rock had hit the trailer next to Chloe, causing her to jump. She had dropped to the ground and curled into a ball. "Knew it," Eli muttered.

"Why'd you do that?" Jake asked, peeved.

"To see how she reacted," Eli replied simply. "It's something that slavers like to train their slaves to do. In the event of a firefight, they want the slaves to drop and stay down so they don't get hit."

"Wouldn't they already do that?" Jake started to walk back to the trailer. Eli followed behind him.

"If you were a slave, would you not want to die? They train them so they instinctively hit the ground before they can even consider ending their suffering by simply standing."

It made sense, Jake thought as he crouched down next to the cowering girl. He still didn't understand Eli's reason for throwing the rock. It seemed pointless to him as Eli wasn't normally one for goofing off; he joked around, but he rarely ever did something that was purely pointless. Jake placed his hand on Chloe's shoulder. She flinched and looked up at him and quickly looked away again; she appeared exhausted and scared but that was normal. She didn't seem to rest at all and always had to be told to do the basic things; it was starting to wear on him. How could anybody deal with this in a slave? Did they just get a new one when the old one dropped? The girl didn't even eat unless she was told directly.

"Get up," he told her. She stood slowly, never making eye contact. "How long have you been awake?"

"S-since we left the t-town," she stuttered, eyes still on the ground.

"Heh, girl's a trooper," Eli said chuckling. "Have fun with this one." He patted Jake on the shoulder and walked off toward the rear of the caravan, whistling as he went.

Jake ignored him. He was still stunned by Chloe's revelation. "You've been up for three days straight?" He had assumed that she went to sleep after everybody else did. "You need to sleep. You _have_ to sleep."

Chloe looked confused, as though she didn't know how to respond. _More likely trying to find a response that won't anger me_, he realized. He really was getting annoyed about that, it made it difficult to talk to her.

"Is th-that a command?" she asked, the quiver audible in her voice.

Jake sighed and shook his head. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is." Chloe still looked uncertain and it took Jake a second to understand why. _To her, it's as though I'm thinking out loud._ Not believing what he was about to say, he took Chloe's chin in his hand and raised her head so that her eyes met his. "Go to sleep, Chloe." To his amazement, she simply collapsed, asleep before she hit the ground. Her head struck the ground with a _crack_.

"Hey, what happened to her?" Jake turned to see a pair of Vanguard soldiers walking towards him. One of the pair had asked the question.

"She uh… passed out. I guess." He hurriedly knelt down to Chloe. The damn girl had probably cracked her head. He put his hand to the back of her skull, but thankfully there was no blood, merely a large lump. He lightly patted her face, but she remained unresponsive. At least she was still breathing. He'd probably have to tell her to wake up, too. He looked sheepishly back toward the soldiers. "Can you give me a hand?"

"With what?" one of the men asked, glaring at him. Obviously he noticed Chloe was a slave.

"Getting her out of the sun."

Jake rose and unlocked the trailer behind him. It was one of the shared ones used by the guards so they could rest while their partner slept. Eli was Jakes only guard so they just took turns walking and driving; Chloe always walked. "Hold this open for me," he told the pair. The soldier not staring daggers at him stepped forward held the door open. Carefully, Jake gathered Chloe into his arms and carried her into the trailer. He wasn't exactly shocked about how light she was, one of the few things he actually expected when he'd bought her. After laying Chloe on one of the padded beds, he bent down and put the back of his hand to her forehead. While not enflamed, it was still uncomfortably warm. _Christ, she's suffering from sleep deprivation and the early onset of heatstroke. And she might have a concussion._

He made to get a moist towel to cover her forehead when he noticed the soldiers. They had followed him inside. One still had glares for him, the other refused to meet his gaze. It was unsettling to find them mad at him. Normally, the Vanguard soldiers stationed outside the big cities were friendlier and less likely to be owned by one of the many crime groups. And yet these men held him in contempt, and he knew it was because of Chloe. _They look at her and think I'm a monster. _

"Look, guys, it's not like I beat her as if she's some kind of animal," Jake said wearily. "I appreciate the help, but I really need to see to her now. _Alone._"

"You going to rape her?" the glowering soldier asked, coldly.

The blunt question hit Jake like a slap to the face. Before he knew what he was doing, his hand flew to the pistol in his belt holster. He heard the clicks of safeties and saw that both Vanguard troopers had their rifles aimed at his head. Jake made himself stop before his hand closed around the pistol's grip. For a long moment no one moved, and the only noises were Chloe's labored breathing and the sounds of laughter and cursing from outside. Even the wind blowing through the Rift seemed to have fallen still. With great effort, Jake forced himself to stand up straight with his arms folded across his chest, his pistol now out of reach. The soldiers still had their guns trained on him.

With as much calm as he could manage, Jake said stiffly, "Gentlemen, I suggest you leave. Slavery is not illegal in Vanguard territory, so your jurisdiction has no weight in this matter. Now, return to your affairs, and leave me to mine."

"And you expect us to just leave her here so you can savage her?" demanded the other solider, speaking for the first time.

"I am _not_ going to rape her!" Jake exclaimed, doing his best not to shout. "I'm trying to get her a wet rag–"

"So you can stuff it down her throat?" the trooper shot back, cutting him off.

Jake felt the veins in his neck bulge and his fists clench. How he wanted his pistol. He couldn't miss, not at this distance. Then again, neither could the soldiers. Before he turned thought into action, the radio clipped to the combat vest of one of the troopers crackled to life.

"_Sweep Team Two, this is Station Beta. What's the situation with that caravan? Sweep Team Two, do you read? Over."_

The trooper the radio belonged to took a hand away from his weapon and pressed the talk button. "Station Beta, this is Sweep Team Two. We were just investigating some suspicious activity in this trailer. Over."

"_Acknowledged, Sweep Team Two. Do we have a problem? Over."_

"I don't know, do we have a problem? _Sweep Team Two?_" Jake mentally kicked himself after he said it. He was asking to get himself shot.

The man with the radio gave Jake a long withering look and then said, "That's a negative, Station Beta. Just a misunderstanding. Over."

"_Good to hear, Two," _crackled Station Beta. _"Now return to the line. We've got a lot of pissed off people on the I today and they all need to be inspected. Over."_

"We copy, Beta. Sweep Team Two returning to patrol route. Over and out." Grudgingly, both soldiers slung their rifles. Jake followed them to the door.

"That's right, it's all just one big misunderstanding," Jake told the men once they were both outside. He remained standing inside the doorway.

One of the soldiers spit and then locked eyes with Jake. "I'd watch myself out here if I were you. Odds are, you lot'll still be on the I come nightfall."

"Then I'm sure we can expect all the hospitality and protection the Vanguard has to offer."

"Sometimes, the patrols, they miss things. Reavers can come up over the cliffs if we're not careful. Other times, men just disappear. Right out of their beds."

"Then it's a good thing I have you to keep me safe. "Have a nice day, gentlemen." Jake closed and locked the trailer door before any more could be said.

A while later, Jake reemerged from the trailer, massaging his temples. The caravan's medic followed behind him and gave Jake his best reassuring smile.

"She'll be okay, son," he said. "Just a nasty bump is all, nothing serious. Let her rest for now and then when she wakes up, get some food and more water in her."

"Thanks, doc. I'll see that she's taken care of."

As he watched the kindly old man walk away, Jake sat down on the trailer's steps and stared at the dirt between his boots. He couldn't fault the Vanguard soldiers for their anger, not really. They abhorred slavery. Hell, _he_ abhorred slavery! _And yet, here you sit with your own little human pet sleeping in your trailer,_ a mocking voice in his head jeered. _I bought her to save her, _he wanted to shout. He couldn't just leave the next day after watching her get beaten. He had to do something! _Great, so you saved her. _The voice was back. _Now why haven't you freed her?_ In response, he kicked a small pebble and watched it skid under the rough-hewn guardrail and over the precipice.

"Why haven't I freed her?" he wondered aloud.

The question was so simple and yet the answer was so complex. In no way did Jake want Chloe as his personal servant, his dog to do with as he pleased. But now he was caught in a conflict of ethics. He knew he could free her, _should_ free her. But at what cost? Money? The sum was a small price to pay to end her suffering at the hands of the slavers. No, money was not a factor. What Chloe would do with that freedom once he gave it to her was what plagued him. Right now, he was her master. If freed, would she run off, wanting to get as far away from her captivity (him) as possible? Likely, she'd be killed or put into slavery again. But how can I be certain that she'll run? _And how can you be certain she won't?_ That was the flipside. The only way he could rationalize all of this was to maintain the status quo for now and grant Chloe her freedom when the time seemed right. She'd been brainwashed for two years after all; she might not know how to be her own person again just yet. Better to keep her close and to introduce liberties as they went. Sighing, he stood and went to go find Eli.

There was another nagging angle to this that Jake didn't want to consider, and that was, why. Why her? Why did he care what happened to Chloe? There were other slaves in the holding pens that day, all of them as bad or worse off than Chloe. And yet he had chosen to save _her_. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head to dispel thoughts he could not sort through. If the answer was what he thought – feared – it was, he'd be damned if…if… If what? In the back of his mind Jake knew that because of Chloe, he'd be damned, regardless, for better or for worse.

Jake found his friend in the middle of a circle of people. Eli was standing on his head with another man doing the same across from him. There was an old guitar sitting between them; Eli's dull green duster lay neatly folded off to the side with his hat.

Jake found it strange to see the man without the duster; he already looked strong and imposing when he had it on, but with it off, Eli looked more the giant. The now-exposed body armor he wore moved not an inch, held taught against the man's muscular frame. Jake didn't know where Eli had gotten it; ,brown in color with a black under-weave, it looked almost as if it had just come off the presses of some factory. Earlier in the crossing, some of the veteran Vanguard infantry seemed to recognize the armor and gave Eli a wide berth, their looks a mixture of fear and respect. Jake had tried asking a few of them how they knew Eli – his friend certainly wasn't one to let on about his past – but the men remained tightlipped for the most part. One grunt did tell him that they last time he'd seen armor of that type was back when he'd been stationed on the western border of the Oklahoma Vanguard.

"Hey Jake," Eli said, his voice strained. "This is Renardo."

The other man looked up, or down, as it were, at Jake. Although his head remained stationary, Renardo's eyes conveyed a nod of acknowledgment. Jake looked back and forth between the two men. "Eli, what are you doing?"

"Competing…" Eli seemed to lose balance for a moment but then managed to stabilize himself. "For the guitar."

"He said you couldn't do a headstand, didn't he."

"Yep."

"And now you intend to prove him wrong."

"Yep. Not really the best time right now, Jake."

"Because you can't stand the thought of someone else beating you like that kid –"

Eli shuddered and nearly toppled over. "Words are not advisable right now," he grunted. "Shut. The hell. Up."

Mention of the man's teenage nemesis was always a way to get under his skin. This mysterious person was the only one that Eli claimed had ever beaten him, at anything. Getting him to admit that had taken a lot of whiskey. A lot.

Ignoring the warning, Jake got down on his stomach and crawled close to Eli so that he could whisper in his friend's ear. "I need a word."

"Good night, Jake!" Eli hissed. "What part of "I-am-fuck-in-busy" do you not understand–"

"_After_ you've won," Jake cut him off. "I'll be by our trailer."

"Fine, whatever. Go away. Shoo."

With a mirthless grin, Jake got to his feet and left Eli to his battle of wills.

Jake was just exiting the trailer after checking on Chloe again when Eli came stumbling up to meet him, the guitar propped up on one shoulder.

"If I didn't know you still had blood draining from head, I'd think you were drunk," he said. "I take it you won?"

Eli scoffed. "Yeah, no thanks to you." He put a big paw on the trailer to steady himself. "Don't you know it ain't right to distract a man when he's in the zone?"

"Yeah, but then again, you're not a man, so it doesn't really matter, does it."

"Damn right, I'm not. I'm grade A superhuman." Eli sat down in the dirt and started to strum a few notes on his prize with his thumb. "So…what's up, Jake?"

Jake sat down on the steps next to him. "We'll need to be watchful tonight."

"I know," said Eli. He plucked a note, cocked his head, and then apparently not satisfied, adjusted one of the guitar's machine heads to his liking. "Reavers. Already thought of that."

"It's not them, well, not _just_ them. I may or may not have pissed off some Vanguard soldiers. And they may or may not be bringing friends by while we're still on the I."

"Ohoho!" Eli laughed heartily. And what exactly did you do to make friends so fast?"

"It wasn't me, Eli. It was Chloe."

Eli nodded. "I see. You trained her to give them the middle finger, didn't you?" He laughed even louder until he saw the iron look on Jake's face. "Okay, okay. I'll be nice. What happened?"

With a heavy sigh, Jake told Eli about Chloe going to sleep on command and about the Vanguard's reaction towards him. When he was done, his friend was looking at him, puzzled.

"She sleeps on command? That's weird; I could have sworn she went to sleep on her own during the first few days we had her. Did something change?"

Jake shook his head. "I don't know, I really have no explanation for it. All I know is that for the past three days, she's made a conscious effort to stay awake."

Eli's guitar melodies turned a shade melancholy. "Poor girl's three different shades of screwed up."

"And so am I with the Vanguard. The worst part is, they aren't in the wrong, for feeling how they do, I mean."

"No, no they're not," Eli agreed. He stopped playing and looked at Jake. "You know what you can do to solve this."

"And you know why I can't do that in good conscience."

"And you know that reason's complete brahmin shit."

"Yep."

"So here we are."

"So here we are," Jake agreed solemnly.


End file.
